Confusion about the adverb of time

Question

Are the following adverbs correctly grouped by synonym?

1) Going forwards = from now on

2) In the future= in coming years= in years to come= in years ahead

3) afterwards = later on

What are the differences among # 1, 2 and 3? It seems to me that all of them refer to the future time. Please give example sentence .

Thank you so much for your time and efforts.

Mr Wordy · Accepted Answer

A few things that come to mind...

1) I would say "going forward". "going forward" and "from now on" are pretty much synonymous, but "going forward" is a kind of business-speak jargon (though it has to some extent permeated other spheres). "from now on" is general-purpose:

Going forward, we need to pay more attention to quality control.

This is how it's going to be from now on.

2) Mentioning "years" is typically used for longer-term projections -- things that may not start to become apparent immediately.

In years to come we'll look back and laugh at this.

"in the future" is general-purpose. It can be synonymous with #1, or it can be looking into the more distant future:

In (the) future we need to pay more attention to quality control.

In the future men may travel to distant worlds.

3) "Afterwards" means soon or directly after a certain event:

We went to the cinema and afterwards had a drink.

"Later on" can mean the same, but the length of time between one event and the other can be longer:

Early in our relationship we were very much in love, but later (on) we began to drift apart.

"Later on" can also mean "some (unspecified) time from now":

I'll do that later on.

Confusion about the adverb of time

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